Son of a school teach­er and mu­si­cian, Kirk­pat­rick grew up in a mu­si­cal at­mo­sphere. In 1854, he went to Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia, to study mu­sic and learn a trade. He spent over three years as a car­pen­ter, but was more in­ter­est­ed in mu­sic than me­chan­ics, de­vot­ing all his lei­sure time to its stu­dy. His am­bi­tion at the time was to be­come a vi­o­li­nist.

In 1855, Kirk­pat­rick joined the Whar­ton Street Meth­od­ist Epis­co­pal Church in Phil­a­del­phia, and from then on de­vot­ed him­self most­ly to sac­red mu­sic, giv­ing his ser­vic­es to the choir and Sun­day school. As there were few church or­gans in that day, his vi­o­lin and cel­lo were in con­stant de­mand for choir re­hear­sals, sing­ing so­ci­e­ties, and church pro­grams. Dur­ing this time he wrote a num­ber of un­pub­lished hymn tunes and an­thems.

Kirkpatrick mar­ried Su­san­na Doak in 1861, and had three child­ren with her, in­clud­ing hymn­ist May D. Kirk­pat­rick. Af­ter Su­san­na’s death, he mar­ried Sar­ah Lank­ford Kel­logg Bourne in 1893. After Sar­ah died in 1917, he mar­ried Liz­zie Swe­ney, wi­dow of John R. Swe­ney.

In 1861, at the start of the Amer­i­can civil war, Kirk­pat­rick en­list­ed in the ar­my as a Fife Ma­jor. He was dis­charged the next year, ap­par­ent­ly be­cause of the act of Cong­ress end­ing re­gi­ment­al bands.

Kirkpatrick stu­died vo­cal mu­sic under Pro­fes­sor T. Bi­shop, then a lead­ing or­a­tor­io and bal­lad sing­er. He be­came a mem­ber of the Har­mon­ia and Han­del and Haydn Sac­red Mu­sic So­ci­e­ties, where he heard the great­est sing­ers of the day and be­came fa­mil­iar with the prin­ci­pal chor­al works of the great comp­os­ers. Kirk­pat­rick’s first pub­lished com­po­si­tion was When the Spark of Life Is Wan­ing, which ap­peared around 1858 in the Mu­sic­al Pi­o­neer in New York. He went on to pub­lish about 50 hymn col­lec­tions, in­clud­ing: